Income tax return filing to get easier, e-filing to go completely paperless

The income tax (I-T) department is considering various measures to
ease taxpayers' compliance norms, including doing away with mandatory
submission of hard copies of returns, by as early as this year. At
present, taxpayers have to submit the copies for verification despite
filing returns electronically.
"It could be as early as by the next cycle of filing returns, which is by July 2015," a senior official said.
At present, a taxpayer has to post the signed documents to the
centralised processing centre (CPC) in Bangalore , after which it is
verified. The I-T department then takes a minimum of one month to
process the return.
"After the mandatory compliance is phased out, the processing will
become faster, and reduce taxpayers' complaints," the official added.
According to official sources, the department is also planning to
introduce provisions such as electronic signatures and mentioning of
Aadhar number for e-filing of returns. This would help the department
consider e-returns as a verified document, thereby reducing the
processing time, or in simple terms, computation and issuance of
refunds. As of now, the maximum number of complaints received by the
department is mainly about delays in processing returns and issuing
refunds.
The I-T Act gives a provision of submitting these documents by up to
120 days, which according to the official, leads to delays that can be
extended by to up to two years.